Issues w. OpenFoam on CAELinuxBeta2

Hi everybody,

I tried for the first time to do the tutorials (UserGuide ch.2) of OpenFoam with FoamX using the livecd of CAELinuxBata2.
The first time you start FoamX it looks like dead meat: Clicking on help leads to either \"mozilla not found\" or \"acroread not found\" errors. The remaining menus seem empty. So I started to read the homepages and got for every found solution several new problems. Here a few examples.

1. FoamX runs when started by /opt/FoamX.sh but not by FoamX out of the ../bin directory as the UserGuide says.
2. FoamX does not execute the calculation of the tutorial case icoFoam.
3. paraFoam also does not start. Only ParaView by using /opt/ParaView.sh.
4. The execution of foamInstallationTest works and shows lots of missing environment variables and fatal errors of the OpenFoam installation.

Did I miss something? Or is there really an issue with the installation of OpenFoam on the livecd? Does OpenFoam work better when CAELinux is installed on the HD?
Can anybody advise me how to get OpenFoam to work properly in CAELinux?

By the way, considering the number of OpenFoam-forum-entries about compilation and installation you can tell that it must be really difficult. This proves how important the work invested in CAELinux is. (If OpenFoam really works in the end;-). My congratulations for CAELinux.
Thanks
roleic

Hi,

you are right, installing OpenFOAM is not an easy thing, especially when you don't want to install it in HOME directory of each user. Moreover openFOAM WANTS to have all its own variables set in .bashrc to run properly, but this creates a lot of incompatibilities with other softwares (GCC & Java libs!!).

Finally, this is how it has been done: there is a special bashrc that sets the variables for OpenFOAM or other CAE/FEA tools and if you want to start OpenFOAM from command line, just start the console through \"Start->CAE->Command Line tools\".

Moreover, all the .sh scripts in /opt/ have been written specially for setting automatically the required environment variables. If you don't want to go through \"Command Line Tools\" console, you can define the env. variables via:
source ~/.bashrc-CAE

When running OpenFOAM with the env. variables set, everything should run smoothly, and I have tested the first tutorial succesfully.

To answer your questions:
1) FoamX does start from either \"Start Menu\", \"Command Line Tools\" console, \"/opt/FoamX.sh\". Other OpenFOAM command line tools can run from Command Line Tools console or from standard console if you do a \"source ~/.bashrc-CAE\".
2) when I tested it FoamX was running the icoFOAM tutorial... are you running it as root or guest ? I have tested it as root.
3) paraFOAM should start as said in 1)
4) foamInstallationTest script should give you much better answers when running with correct env. variables (1), but there are some problems with this script as it reports missing components when they are actually installed and available. So the requirements are here, but the \"test\" script is failing to report all of them. But when you try to run the binaries, everything works.

I will try to find some time to redo the icoFOAM tutorial with the liveDVD, but I have to admit that I don't have enought time to learn how to use openFOAM in the details.

I hope this answer will guide you for your discovery of \"OpenFOAM in CAELinux\". Thank you for your feedback!

J.Cugnoni

Thanks to J.Cugnoni for his hints. They worked fine. Below I summarized them along with a few of my own and put them in a sequenced order for the benefit of other OpenFoam first-timers:

Running OpenFOAM's tutorials step by step:

1. In /root/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.2/.OpenFOAM-1.2/apps/FOAMX/FoamXClient.cfg delete the comment-sign \"#\" in the line \"#FoamX.Browser=konqueror\". This enables the help menu commands of FoamX to load the web-help-pages in konqueror. When trying the PDF-help-menus you still get the \"acroread-not found\"-error. Either install acroread or as a simple work-around you can also find the pdf-files in /root/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.2/doc/Guides-a4 and read them using konqeror
2. Open the UserGuide either as PDF (see previous hint) or as web page from www.opencfd.co.uk/openfoam/doc/user.html
3. Start the \"Command Line Tools\" in the CAE menu
4. Type export FOAM_RUN=/root/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.2
5. start FoamX by typing FoamX. See also UserGuide chapter 2.1.1
6. double click your host (localhost) The list of tutorial cases should appear in the tree
7. double click the case e.g. icoFoam in order to follow the tutorial
8. right click on cavity then mesh/generation/blockmesh. In the pop-up window press execute. Two messages appear. One says \"Application blockMesh (pid 14417) finished successfully\" The other says File /root/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.2/tutorials/icoFoam/cavity/constant/polyMesh/boundary changed on disk. Do you want to reread Mesh&Fields? Press \"yes\" and then close the pop-up window. Save it by pressing on the diskette icon in the toolbar.
9. Press the \"Start Calculation Now\" (double arrow icon in the tool bar). In the \"Command Line Tools\"-Terminal log messages appear. e.g. \"time step continuity errors\"
10. Open a new \"Command Line Tool\" in the CAE menu and type paraFoam /root/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.2/tutorials/icoFoam cavity . The paraview postprocessor appears.
11. cavity.foam is highlighted yellow. Press Accept. Select 0.5 in the Time panel and press Accept again. A contour plot appeaars.
12. Goto Display / Edit Color Map and select \"Visibilty\" and back. This shows the color bar.
13. Read on in the UserGuide chapter 2.1.4ff

Have fun!
roleic